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iOS 26: Tint App Icons to Precisely Match Your iPhone Case Color

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In iOS 26, Apple has added a new feature to its Home screen customization options that can match the color of your app icons with the actual color of your iPhone's case. Keep reading to learn how it works.

iphone-17-beats-cases.jpg

In iOS 18, Apple introduced Tinted app icons. The option applies a color filter over app icons, widgets, and even system UI elements. And with iOS 26, Apple has built on the theme with a new option that matches the color of your iPhone's removable case.

It's worth noting from the off that the color-matching feature only works with official Apple MagSafe cases that include a small NFC chip with color variant information. If you don't have such a case, you might want to consider trying another new tint option in iOS 26 that can match the color of your app icons with the actual color of your iPhone.

How to Tint App Icons to Match iPhone Case Color

This filter uses a base color taken from your iPhone's case color, then automatically adjusts brightness, saturation, and contrast so icons remain legible while still reflecting the case's tone. The following steps show you how it's done.
  1. On your iPhone's Home screen, long press a space between app icons.
  2. Tap Edit in the top-left corner, then select Customize from the popup menu.
  3. Choose Tinted from the options panel that appears, then tap the iPhone case button, second-to-left, under the two horizontal color sliders.
  4. Select Light, Dark, or Auto below that, based on your preferences.
ios-26-tint-app-icons-iphone-case-color.jpg


Note that Tinted mode looks different in iOS 26 than it did in iOS 18. Rather than icons featuring a black background with colored graphics, icons adopt the full color that you select with white graphics in Light Mode. In ‌Dark Mode‌, backgrounds are a much darker shade of the color you choose, but aren't entirely black.

Article Link: iOS 26: Tint App Icons to Precisely Match Your iPhone Case Color
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/ios-tint-app-icons-match-case-color/
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"...then tap the iPhone case button, second-to-left..."

Is it just my phone or are the buttons the other way round from these guides: i.e. the first from left button on my caseless silver Air is greyed out, but the second-to-left button tints things silver to match (what I had presumed) was the phone, rather than a case (because there isn't a case on it...)
 
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philipc121 said:
"...then tap the iPhone case button, second-to-left..."

Is it just my phone or are the buttons the other way round from these guides: i.e. the first from left button on my caseless silver Air is greyed out, but the second-to-left button tints things silver to match (what I had presumed) was the phone, rather than a case (because there isn't a case on it...)
Click to expand...
Same here, I'm very confused... on both iPhone 15 Pro and 17 Pro: the first icon is grayed out (I've no case), the second one assigns colour...
 
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Would be cool if Apple gave you the ability to tint with non-official cases such as an option to take a picture of it and iOS automatically extracts the color and applies it to your icons.
 
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MLVC said:
I wonder if there's a way to change your wallpaper based on what case you're using, since it has a NFC chip.
Click to expand...
That would be pretty cool, if different cases came with their own unique wallpapers!
I'm someone who likes to swap my case and my wallpaper sometimes multiple times a day!
 
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I guess it's a nifty little feature, but even the option to tint your icons to your phone's body doesn't give a great result. I'm sure they have to make a trade-off between the intensity of the tint and app legibility but the "cosmic orange" tint on my phone is definitely more muted than the frame itself.

Feels like a half-baked party trick to try to sell more first-party cases.
 
joeblow7777 said:
That would be pretty cool, if different cases came with their own unique wallpapers!
I'm someone who likes to swap my case and my wallpaper sometimes multiple times a day!
Click to expand...
I mean you could of course use a NFC sticker and a shortcut for this. Would be nice if Apple opened up that NFC chip in the case for this though.
 
Maybe it's just me, but I think that a typical user would struggle to immediately understand the Customise window, especially the four buttons in Tinted.

The first two just look like an icon of a phone (until you look really closely and realise that one is a phone and one is a case, but then you have to already know what they're supposed to do), the third one just looks like a bunch of circles or perhaps the Mindfulness icon (until you again look really closely and realise it's an outlined version of the Photos app icon, which is itself an abstract representation of a flower), and the last one is an eyedropper.

The buttons in the top left and right corners don't look like buttons at all, and similarly have no labels.

It's only after you start playing with the options that you understand what they all do. Seems like the UI design could use some work.

Personally, despite all the options, I've gone back to the default of full color icons that the app designers intended, since the other options make them all look too similar and blend in together (again, maybe that's just my brain).

chabig said:
Are tinted icons compatible with Apple’s polishing cloth? I don’t want my tint to rub off.
Click to expand...
Well, with the current state of iOS 26, occasionally the icons just vanish completely anyway 😅
 
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